Mooney to the rescue as champs overcome World Cup scare

Beth Mooney has fashioned one of the finest innings of her illustrious career, digging out her first World Cup century to rescue Australia from the mire and help set up an ultimately straightforward 107-run win over Pakistan in Sri Lanka.

The left-hander hit 109 off 114 balls and shared a record women's ODI ninth-wicket stand with Alana King (51no) at the death to turn around the most precarious situation and guide Australia to a challenging 9-221 after they'd been tottering on 7-76 in a trial by spin at Colombo's R Premadasa Stadium.

Alarm over, the world champions then looked relieved and ruthless on a difficult slow wicket, with Kim Garth and Megan Schutt ripping through Pakistan's top order as they crumbled to 114 all out off 36.3 overs.

The win, ultimately convincing enough but only after another disappointing overall batting performance, put Australia back atop the league table, still unbeaten on five points after three matches, featuring two wins and a wash-out.

Between them, Mooney and King put on 106, including a blistering 53 off the last four overs in suffocating hot and humid conditions.

Mooney, who finds days like this particularly trying physically, admitted with a rueful smile that she felt as if she was "dying" following the knock as she disappeared back to the dressing room to dunk her head in a bowl of ice water.

"Pretty high," the 31-year-old admitted, when asked where her fifth ODI hundred ranked, while captain Alyssa Healy called it "one of the best innings I have seen her play."

For while Pakistan had never beaten Australia's women in 16 ODIs, they were soon left dreaming after they had put the holders in to bat on Wednesday and had them on the rack, thanks to a mixture of feeble batting and quality spin.

Healy (20), Phoebe Litchfield (10) Ash Gardner (one), Tahlia McGrath (five) and Georgia Wareham (nought) all misread the pace of the pitch and ended up surrendering their wickets to either half-hearted aerial shots or mistimed, heavy-handed defensive strokes amid a shocking collapse.

Nashra Sandhu (3-37) proved the best of the spinners as she had Ellyse Perry stumped for five -- brilliantly by Pakistan's superb young keeper Sidra Nawaz, who later showed similar quicksilver glovework to get rid of Kim Garth - and also clean bowled Annabel Sutherland for one.

But amid the mayhem, No.4 Mooney typically kept her head down and kept the ball on the ground, utilising her superb back-foot technique to play late.

Aided by a slow but crucially stubborn 11 off 47 balls from Garth, she gradually dragged Australia towards respectability, going on to record her ton off 106 balls s she found an enterprising partner in King, who went for broke in the last few overs and smacked three sixes and three fours in her 48-ball half-century.

King ended up setting another women's ODI record for the highest score by any batter at No.10 or 11.

"She was incredible. We've seen her do that plenty of times in the back end of an innings in a yellow shirt," said Mooney. "We had to really grind for that one."

Once they'd gone past 200, though, the chase already looked a long shot as Garth proved her worth as a genuine allrounder with 3-14 off six overs and Schutt took 2-25 off her five, with Pakistan crumbling to 5-31 in just the ninth over.

There was no way back then, with the in-form Sidra falling to Gardner for an innings-high 35 and Sutherland (2-15 off 8.3 overs) taking two catches as well as the last two key wickets of captain Fatima Sana (11) and Rameen Shamim (15)